He saw that he could do nothing against her, and indeed was too proud to
try. His pride had risen correspondingly to his humiliation; he would
show her that something, at all events, in him was not a sham. He was
terribly, doubly hurt,—hurt in his heart, and hurt, too, with the uneasy
wound of pride, his pride towards her, his pride towards himself. All
that she had said had been so true; she had found the truth as a weapon,
and had beaten him with it across the face. He was so battered, so
gashed with scorn, that he was surprised to find himself still alive and
sentient. But he _was_ sentient. He _was_ indomitable. His life was so
strong that it had not been knocked even temporarily unconscious. It
stirred: he spoke.
“I shall say nothing to justify myself,” he began. “If your ladyship
wishes to think ill of me you must do so, although I dare say I could
alter your opinion.” He was prompted to say this by a phrase that had
occurred to his mind, and which gave him some private consolation, “I
have, after all, murdered my wife, defied God, and banished my own son.”
But he did not say these words aloud. “You are of course free, my lady,”
he went on, “to dismiss me without being besought by me. You call me a
coward; you forget I have the courage to live alone.”
“The egoism,” she amended.
“No!” he said sharply, “it’s discipline, not inclination, and it began
when I was a boy, because I wouldn’t have pity. Now it’s a habit. I’ve
shut myself off from pity. I’m well schooled.”
“Is that all you have to say?” asked Lady Malleson, as he ceased.
“Did you expect me to plead for mercy? You were quite right when you
said you knew only the part of me that I was willing for you to know. If
you had known everything, my lady, you might have been startled.” He was
nursing his secret phrase. “But I plan very carefully what I shall
betray to different people. Being blind, I must invent things to think
about.”
“You are a demon!” broke from Lady Malleson.
Silas smiled a bitter, gratified smile; he had at least succeeded in
making her angry. Having done so, could he reconquer her? Should he risk
the affront of failure? She was all he had. No! if she cared so little,
let her go. He would not submit to being patronised, to being kept on
sufferance by the woman who alone had the privilege of twisting the
strings of his heart. If that privilege, so grudgingly, so agonisingly
accorded, were to be so little esteemed, let her go! What matter? A
loneliness the more.
“I thought at first that I would tell Emma to bring you to the abbey,”
she resumed, more quietly; “I thought that the setting would please you
and satisfy your sense of histrionics. It would have been so thoroughly
Silasian. For you _are_ histrionic, aren’t you, Silas?”
“Perhaps,” he said.
“You and I, sitting on two cane chairs, in the dark abbey,” she went on,
“while I poured out to you in an undertone all my opinion of you, my new
opinion, for the first time, my true opinion, and then, who knows? the
organist might have come in to practise, and so provided an
accompaniment for your answer. I really believe your answer would have
varied according to the music. It would tickle you to sway your life on
a dainty chance like that. I wonder that I overcame the temptation.”
“A great pity,” said Silas indifferently, but as though he had allowed
himself to be beguiled a moment by the charm of the suggestion. She was
annoyed with herself; she felt that she had allowed her irony to run
away with her, to become a little too wild, especially when he continued
in a tone of irreproachable conventionality, “I must now thank your
ladyship for the kindness shown in the past and for the many hours I
have been allowed to spend at Malleson Place. I appreciate that it isn’t
many poor chaps like me that’s given the advantage. It’s been a gift
blown me by the ill wind of my wife’s death and my blindness. Your
ladyship has a kind heart,—they all say so in the village when they hear
of the favours shown to blind Dene.” As he spoke he made small staccato
movements with his fingers, bearing a resemblance to the dart of
Gregory’s pencil in some minute alteration of his designs, a family
resemblance, that in its finicky precision was equally incongruous to
both brothers; in Silas the gestures seem to indicate the finishing
touches to a work of art about to be laid aside; the touches were given,
possibly, with regret, but still with a certain affectionate
satisfaction, as to work well done, and opportunely completed; (he
marvelled at himself even as he spoke and gesticulated); they irritated
Lady Malleson with a small, wiry irritation, like some insignificant but
exasperating physical pain, causing her to forget what she had called
the grandeur of Silas, and to remember only the warped, malicious
artistry in which he appeared to take delight.
Then he changed; he towered; he dwarfed her; all her superiority went in
a flash.
“Listen,” he said then, so suddenly that she had the impression that he
had stepped bodily out of a disguise,—“Your interest in me may have been
unreal to you,—how could it have been otherwise? You are a fine lady,
you have been through many experiences; I’m a rough fellow, and I dare
say bitter and brutal enough....”
“You like to think yourself brutal, don’t you?” she interjected.
“Such as I was,” he said, “you had me; are you proud of what you made of
me?—Oh!” he said, hearing her movement of impatience, “I won’t make you
discourse; only that question I wanted to ask you: are you proud of what
you made? Only this: was I _so_ unworthy of your ladyship? Have you been
sullied by my contact? Or have I, by God,” he thundered at her, “been
sullied by yours? I’m not so sure. What are you wondering in your mind
now? whether you can trust me to go away and hold my tongue? You think
you won’t risk putting the idea of indiscretion into my head; you
probably think it will come there quite soon enough by itself. Are you
any less of a coward than I? You need have no anxiety, I’m not tempted
to revenge myself on you in that way,—you think of that, you’re
preoccupied with that, but do you think at all of what you may have done
to me? You picked me up casually, and you think you can put me down in
the same way. But, between picking me up and putting me down, you’ve
worked on me; you don’t leave me quite the same as you found me; and I’m
not an easy metal.”
She was frightened when he said that, and muttered hurriedly, “I hope I
haven’t done you any harm.”
“One doesn’t know what harm or good one does,” he replied, “working-man
or grand lady. You’ll go your way. I’m asking you only whether you’ll
remember me with pride, or whether you’ll think of yourself as one of
the things that dragged me back, when I was always trying to escape? I’m
not strong, you know. I’m not strong. I’m only cursed with a spirit
that’s totally beyond my strength.”
“I don’t understand,” she said uneasily; she tried to tell herself that
he was making a great fuss; but she could not get away from the idea
that the “fuss” was tragically weighted.
“You’re quite safe,” he said, with extraordinary gentleness. “I never
wanted to love, you know, either you or any one else; I often told you
so; but it isn’t love that I abuse, only the weakness that submits to
it. And I have to acknowledge that you are wise in getting rid of me.
I’m all awry, you know; misbegotten; and folk like me are better left
alone; their misfortune only rubs off on to other people. You are wise
to protect yourself; that’s always a wise thing to do. I could wish only
that you had done it earlier; you would have made it easier for me.”
The melancholy of his reproach surprised her into saying, “Is it at this
moment that you’re speaking from your heart, or was it just now?” and
she remembered the sharp finicky gestures he had made when he thanked
her for the kindness she had shown him. “To what extent are you
theatrical?” she asked, in a little outburst of bad temper.
“That isn’t a question I should answer, even if I had the answer at the
tip of my tongue,” he replied. “You may think, if you choose, that I am
never sincere.” (She thought, “He is going back to his old manner.” She
was greatly thankful.) “Perhaps I am no more sincere,” he continued,
standing there, “than any of your ladyship’s little gimcracks in this
room.” His reference to her gimcracks was not contemptuous; he seemed
rather to be translated into a region where a large gentleness held
sway. Ironically enough, she thought that she had never seen him before,
although this was the last time she was seeing him. A similar idea
appeared to strike him at the same moment, for he said, “All along, I
have fought against you, and tried to disguise myself from you. It
doesn’t matter now. I seem always to be fighting,—floundering
about,—don’t I? I wonder whether I shall ever get away? away from
myself? Would your ladyship ring for Emma now? I should like to go.”
She got up wearily and crossed the room to the bell. He was standing
there, no longer scathing, but quiet, patient, and tired. She looked at
him; and, going swiftly to him, she caught his hand.
“Listen, Silas. Perhaps I’ve been too hasty. Listen to me. Perhaps I
need not dismiss you altogether ... I might reconsider....”
“No,” he brought out with extreme firmness, as though he extorted from a
long way off the last tragic effort of an overstrained will.
“As you please,” she said, dropping his hand, and in her angry haste she
threw open the door to urge the maid who was coming to lead him away.